


My Heart Is Like A Haunted House

by laceaesthetic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Candy Timeline, Character Study, F/F, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, bc im not rereading that, covers a large span of time, epilogue compliant, focuses on maternal relationships, johnroxy is mentioned, proud to say not a single man speaks in this fic, read notes after summary for trigger warnings, self inflicted angst with happy ending, set in vague timing within the epilogues, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 17:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laceaesthetic/pseuds/laceaesthetic
Summary: You have spent years vilifying your mother. A figure once so big, she held your world in her tiny martini glass. And now, you find yourself staring face to face with her again. That same languid smile that ignored you all your youth, stuck on a teenager. For a moment, you fear that she will walk up to you and be thirty feet tall again. You approach her like a frightened gazelle might approach a lion's corpse, a small anger in your heart alight once more, to find that she is your same height.How do you begin to repair yourself, when you are broken at the roots?





	My Heart Is Like A Haunted House

**Author's Note:**

> Possible trigger warnings:  
-Animal death  
-Child negligence  
-Victim blaming (Rose blames herself)  
-Self-deprecating thoughts

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you are beginning to think you don’t know much about motherhood, certainly not enough to participate in the practice. The thought does not surprise the part of you that has always criticized conformity, but it does surprise the part of you that takes over when you hold young Vriska in your arms. You don’t tell Kanaya about this development in your journey of self-discovery, you don’t tell anyone. Roxy says that motherhood is inherent, she bounces Harry Anderson on her knee as she rambles. You think of your childhood and of Roxy in another life. Her words seem like a taunt.

When you were young, you often found it hard to speak. Your throat would protest against your breath, making the words that left your mouth squeak and crack. Your mother worked long hours. You were homeschooled. The only friends you had were colored letters on a screen. It stands to reason that your vocal cords were not as mature as the rest of you.

When your mother came home, you had your dinner silently. Your mother didn't believe in silence. Her drawling words, making it clear she was not a true New Yorker, would flow over you. She never asked for your input. You never willingly gave it. You would finish your dinner long before she finished her story. When you went back upstairs, her words followed you. She always refused to stop talking.

One spring, you awoke to the sound of chirping at your window. To your surprise, a bird had taken to nesting in the fruitless trees that sprawled out towards you. Its sweet song gave you a reprieve from the silence in your house. You took to watching the bird warm her eggs. They would all fail to mature, victims to the weather and scavengers, all save for one. You watched that sole survivor with rapt attention. You watched the mother bird feed her. You watched the mother bird not come back one day. You watched the young bird fall sickly from malnutrition. You watched him call for his mother one last time, then be eaten alive by a far more cunning avian. You watched the mother bird return the day after. You will never know what the mother bird did after. You stopped watching.

* * *

Upon arriving into the new session, you faced a new predicament.

You have spent years vilifying your mother. A figure once so big, she held your world in her tiny martini glass. And now, you find yourself staring face to face with her again. That same languid smile that ignored you all your youth, stuck on a teenager. For a moment, you fear that she will walk up to you and be thirty feet tall again. You approach her like a frightened gazelle might approach a lion's corpse, a small anger in your heart alight once more, to find that she is your same height.

In that same breath, you realize she isn't your mother. At least, not completely. Her nose is too small. It is still finding its footing in her teenage years. Her lips are painted a pretty, natural beige. It is not the gaudy, mocking black that stood stark against the too-light foundation your mother always wore. Her hair is cut the same way. It's just shorter. Closer to the skull. Curls sticking out, but not enough to cover the very tip of her ears. Your mother's hair was a halo around her, blocking out the sun whenever she stood in front of you. Startled, you realize that she is human, and so are you.

The girl that stands before you is not the woman wrecked with the knowledge of her inevitable doom, wrecked with the responsibility of raising the very thing that kills her. Her smile is of intrigue, excitement. It is not of an alcohol-covered haze. You lose your train of thought. You are no longer certain of how to treat her.

ROXY: heyy im roxy!

ROSE: Hello, I'm Rose.

* * *

Meeting Roxy changed your perspective. You think of how wonderful this girl who grew up to be a neglectful mother is. You think of what could have made her turn out so awful. You know the answer. It is you. It is your birth, a stain on a working woman’s glamorous life. You ruined her, you know this to be true. You were, are, always will be, the malignant tumor that forced her to disaster. How could you ever begin to criticize her, when her troubles began with you?

You carry this sentiment with you until it begins to weigh down. Your shoulders hunch, you find it hard to get out of bed. Kanaya, with the intense passion that made you fall in love with her, fussed over you. She thought your mysterious illness—your Ultimate Ascension, though you never told her—had begun to afflict you again, despite the fact that you have not been in such ill shape for years. With weak words, you urge her to go back to the Mother Grub, to let you watch over Vriska. You nearly gag on the words. You watch her eyebrows crease with worry as you lay in bed, she stands over you, smoothing the blanket that covers you, caressing your cheek when her hands don’t shake. She lowers her head, enough so that one of her horns—so grown from age that she now bends to get through your doors—lightly tap your head. It is not a moment of intimacy. It is a moment of quiet desperation, a thought that strikes your heart with pain. How could you ever love a woman such as Kanaya? So nurturing, so perfect, so lovely. How could you love with all the flaws that covered and blackened your heart? You can’t stand the sight of anything you love anymore, because love has been tainted for you.

ROSE: Kanaya.

ROSE: I beg of you, go on with your duties. I can take care of myself plenty.

KANAYA: How Can I Believe That?

You close your eyes, so pained of the worried expression that is clear on your wife’s face. You feign a smile, anything to get her away from the hurt and evil you have caused, can cause, will always cause, the people you love.

ROSE: My dearest, I believe you are forgetting which of us is a god. I can do anything, so long as you don’t worry about me, Kanaya.

She kisses your hand, so sweet and undeserved that you have to stop yourself from pulling away. She rises and closes the bedroom door behind her, plunging you into the darkness alone.

The next day, she leaves as normal, but a knock comes on the door less than an hour later. Thinking it to be Kanaya, you let yourself rise, with great difficulty, and open the door. It is some troll, perhaps familiar once upon a time but no longer recognizable to your hectic mind.

SWIFER: Howdy, Ms. Lalonde-Maryam! Eep, I guess it’s missus now, ain’t it? Well, anyways, Mrs. Maryam-Lalonde told me to come over and look over you and lil’ Vriska!

You are filled with such shock, Swifer, now recognizable by the friendly timber of her voice, has no trouble passing beside you and entering your home. She drops a fairly large bag on the sofa in your drawing room as you close the door. You would later learn that it was filled with grub items—the kind made __for __grubs and not __by __them—that she had picked up on the way. It didn’t deter her when you told her that Kanaya made sure that the house was plenty stocked with such items. She merely shrugged and continued to rifle through her bag anyway.

With this new arrangement, Swifer ended up looking more over Vriska than you. That was fine with you, you had begun to grow nauseous whenever you had to care for Vriska. The guilt you felt at this sickness did nothing to help you with the task either. Instead, you make your time by staying locked up in your bedroom. You read a book, you knit, you feel a raw ache deep in your chest that you can not identify the cause of. You neglect to eat until Swifer knocks on the door to bring you something fairly inedible for humans. You throw the meal out of the window. You miss your friends. You realize that your friends deserve better than you. You do not cry. You are so void of any feeling you do not believe you have the capacity to cry. You listen to Vriska’s cries in another room, at least until Swifer manages to calm her down hurriedly. You fall asleep long before your wife gets home. You wake up long past when she leaves the house.

And then, on a whim with a sudden fire lighting you, you decide to visit the Egbert-Lalonde home and check up on dear Harry Anderson. It is a break in the monotony that you have confined yourself to. You go with a greater purpose. Swifer is so shocked at your tenacity, she does not even question you. That is what you tell yourself, though you can not remember if you passed Swifer at all on your way out, she may have still been in Vriska’s bedroom. You go without warning, without the pretense of a birthday or a holiday to let them fix their home and make it seem stable and normal. You plan on assessing his situation. You are ready to whisk him away at a moment's notice. You are the kind aunt you have always wished for in the lonely nights.

John answers, cheeks flushed and teeth still overtaking his face. Harry Anderson stumbles toward the door, shoeless and laughing gleefully. You find yourself out of place. John lets you in without protest. You find it hard to stay upright as you gaze at him. He absent-mindedly tosses the wind about to entertain Harry Anderson. He focuses most of his attention on you. With a glow surrounding him, he drapes you in sweet greetings and pleasantries. Your throat has gone dry. You find yourself fixated on John's right hand. It flips one way and the other, the winds following every movement of muscle. Harry Anderson gives a bright laugh as he desperately tries to catch his father's hand. There is an ache within you. You almost can't bear to see the sight of joy on a child's face.

You let yourself drift through the conversation, only barely present. Roxy laughs brightly at John’s word. You think of Kanaya. You miss her. You rise from your chair. You give a sweet smile and a firm handshake to Harry Anderson as you bid farewell. You try not to run all the way back to your home. You think of Vriska’s cries as you head back. Heard second-hand, muffled by the force of several walls between the two of you. You have become the thing you hate the most.

When you open the door, Kanaya—in all the grace and splendor that can only be possessed by Kanaya—worriedly consults with an anxious Swifer. They both turn at the sound of the door opening. You throw yourself into Kanaya’s arms, or rather her torso. She hunches slightly to wrap her arms around your shoulders. You don’t hear her dismiss Swifer, nor hear Swifer close the door, but you assume it must’ve happened because when you open your eyes, it is just you and Kanaya.

KANAYA: Will You Tell Me What Is The Matter?

ROSE: An awakening that has long been overdue.

KANAYA: Now Is Not The Time For Purple Prose.

You can’t help but laugh at that. It’s a bubbling thing, shortened by hiccups and a strain on your throat as you hold back tears.

ROSE: I am not fit for a life like this. Domesticity. Marriage. Motherhood.

ROSE: These are not things I have ever known, things I never imagined I would have known. I fear it is too late for me to learn how to live with these things. My brain is programmed for war, for life and death and fleeting connections. Stability is an unknown void I can not parse.

It is Kanaya’s turn to laugh, though you do not know why.

KANAYA: You Say This To Your Wife, An Alternian Troll. It Is A Rather Particular Breed Of Irony.

KANAYA: Every Fear You Have, Rose, I Have Shared. And I Would Go Through It All Again Knowing That You Were My Treasure To Be Had At The End Of Every Trial.

ROSE: And if I can’t complete these trials as you did?

She rubs your cheek fondly, her eyes as soft and full of adoration, even now as you grovel at her feet.

KANAYA: If You Get Halfway Through, I Can Help You The Other Half Of The Way.

And that one simple sentence breaks the sordid spell that entranced you. You reach up, your fingertips brushing against her Kanaya’s shoulders. She gets the hint. She hunches and meets you halfway there, just like she said she would, and kisses you sweeter than any dessert you have ever craved. Sweeter than your wedding cake, sweeter than the flushing words she told you when you first began to date. Sweeter than all these things combined because these are the ingredients packed into this single kiss. You’ve missed Kanaya. You would do anything for Kanaya. But for now, she is not asking anything of you, only giving her love in physical form, free for you to hold and lock away in your memories.

She pulls away, and you follow her to the best of your extent but the distance is too wide. You see a sadness in her eyes and your heart almost breaks on the spot.

KANAYA: You Can Always Tell Me Your Troubles, My Love.

And you do. You tell her of your mother, of your fears, of the numbness you see when you look at Vriska. You tell her everything that has ever made you distant. You tell her and she listens. She looks at you, pained and torn and raw. She kisses your hand and whispers soft words in your ear. And she stops. Because Vriska has wandered in. And she rises from the couch, and you are reminded that the world is no longer just you and Kanaya. She lovingly guides your child back to her room to play with whatever she plays with. Your child, who you have not looked at for longer than you can recall. Your child, who you know very little of. Your child. Once again, you feel tears threaten to spill. How have you failed so miserably?

Kanaya comes back in, rushed but impassioned. She kneels down before you. She holds your hands in her own and begins her sermon to you.

KANAYA: I Will Not Tell You That Vriska Is Your Way To Atone Because That Will Only Be More Pressure.

KANAYA: But I Will Tell You That She Is A Part Of Our Lives And That I Am Not Enough For Her. I Need You Too, Rose. She Needs You Too.

You lean forward, plant a kiss on her forehead, and answer.

ROSE: I know.

ROSE: God, how I know, Kanaya. I’ll try, I can promise you that.

ROSE: But I need you by my side for now. I need to learn.

You brush her bangs from her face and see pure relief flooding her eyes. She smiles.

KANAYA: Of Course, My Dear.

She takes a break from the brooding caverns. The days are filled with long walks with Vriska in tow. You ask her simple questions, she gives you long, babbling answers that don’t make proper sense, Kanaya says she’s already taken after you. You laugh and gesture to take Vriska out of her arms and into yours. Days with Kanaya and Vriska are good. Days with Kanaya are good. Days with Vriska are hard.

Sometimes, Kanaya will leave. For an errand. For a nap in her recuperacoon. Then you are left to do what you fear most. You ask complex questions, hoping to kill the time with the answer. Vriska gives a short, non-answer because she doesn’t understand every part. She’ll ask you short questions. You’ll give long, winding answers only to find her running to her toys while you are mid-sentence. You think you are a failure and inept. You relay this to Kanaya, and she smiles and shakes her head.

KANAYA: She Acts Exactly Like That With Me Too. This Is What Grubs Do. There Is No Need To Fret.

That soothes you, and it starts you anew.

You work harder to bond with Vriska. Kanaya eases into going back to the brooding caverns. You stay in the house at first, desperate to be the model housewife. It almost makes you revert again into a shut-in within your own bedroom. You decide to take Vriska everywhere, do everything, busy your mind and her attention away from your cataclysmic thoughts. It’s a new site every day and it does enough for your sanity. You learn to love Vriska’s side comments as you walk through the streets. You learn to love Vriska the way you wished you were loved.

* * *

One day you wake up, you take her out to the market, and she’s able to give complex, comprehensible answers to your short questions. You fall upon an easy rhythm then. You give questions with substance, but no real meat, and she pays harder attention to your answers to her questions.

One day you wake up, you take her to your favorite restaurant, and she holds your hand on the entire walk there. She holds your skirt when you enter, needing the comfort to face a new environment. You don’t mind the contact. You think of John, of his hand swaying which way and that. You think of Harry Anderson, unable to ever predict the busy movement of his father’s hand, unable to ever catch and hold it. It is now a fond, yet bittersweet, memory. You find yourself grasping for Vriska’s warm, chubby hand.

One day you wake up, you go through your day, and you have a movie night with your wife and your child. Vriska is in the middle of you two, but her head leans on Kanaya’s side. One of her legs is tucked under her, the other is haphazardly splayed along your lap. You know she will fidget when her foot begins to fall asleep, and eventually withdraw her leg. But the position is fine. You are fine. It’s quite the revelation to make in the middle of an Alternian movie that would not be considered child-friendly on your Earth. You make it all the same.

Kanaya leaves early, too tired from her day. You let silence overtake you and Vriska, but find yourself feeling restless. You still feel as if you are not the mother that a child as wonderful as Vriska deserves. You try your hardest to remedy it. So you take a deep breath. You wrap one arm around her shoulders and giver her a kiss on the forehead.

ROSE: I love you. I hope you know that.

She flaps at your hand on her, but her mouth tugs upwards at the corner.

VRISKA: Sheesh!!!!!!!! I kn8w mama!

She turns her head towards you and gives a full grin.

VRISKA: I love you too!

And then her expression turns mischievous.

VRISKA: But I love mom more! >::::P

ROSE: There are some barriers that species can not break through, I suppose. A child’s love is but one example.

You stare at each other for a moment, and then begin to erupt in laughter.

* * *

One day, you wake up and the worlds your friends have made for themselves begin to crumble. Dave is hurtling towards disaster, set on never talking about his feelings again. Jade is oblivious, dying to find the affection she never found in childhood. It makes you pity and sympathize with her, but you find it hard to reach out. John is—well, John is a great deal of many things.

One day you wake up, and the world you made for yourself begins to fracture. Jane has begun to fracture it. You knew it would happen, and still, you lament the stable life you must leave behind once more. You bunker down. You hold Vriska close. You once again hold strategic meetings with Karkat and Kanaya on a war they might not be prepared for. But it feels wrong. It feels like a game of pretend, some costume you have put on for fun. There are lives at stake, you know, but is it really your life? You can’t come up with an answer. You think of the last time you had a __real __battle, a battle the required all the force within you. You feel powerless. You feel hollow and plastic.

One day you wake up and news of Roxy and John’s divorce has seeped into the underground. You think you only truly know because Roxy has been seen stuck in Jane’s side after it. You think of when you envied their marriage, oh so long ago. You try not to laugh, though a dry scoff escapes you.

You have long since outgrown comparing yourself to others. You have long since outgrown fretting over your mother. You keep the memory of her in the back of your mind. You replace the bad moments with the memory of Vriska’s laugh, of Kanaya’s lips against your cheek. You don’t let yourself dwell on the good and absolve her of all guilt. Your mother was a bad mother. You know it. But there is no good in bringing back ghosts with memory alone.

You forge on. You stare lovingly at the wedding band upon your finger, stare even more lovingly at the woman who put it there. You have fevered discussions with Vriska, that nearly always end in laughter and teasing. You rub Kanaya’s shoulders after a long day. You help cut Vriska’s hair when she finally grows the courage to ask. You live. In between the war, in between the growing distance of your friends, you live. You live because you have not died so many times to stay amongst the dead. You live.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please tell me! If you would like me to tag anything else please do so!
> 
> The title was taken from Haunted House by Florence & The Machine
> 
> Contact me on:  
Twitter: hopefulsylph  
Tumblr: gardensofeve


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